Most recently he balked at a mandate requiring the state, for constitutional reasons, to shrink the prison population by another 10,000 inmates.

Legally it’s difficult to see how the governor prevails. Pushing prisoner numbers well below current levels has already received the imprimatur of the U.S. Supreme Court. These events, though, bring two important questions: Why exactly is Brown stonewalling when it’s in the interest of California to shrink the penal system? And given the seemingly intractable corrections morass, how do our elected leaders point us forward?

In both cases, the answer has a lot to do with the California Republican Party — the party with no real power — being grossly out of step on crime relative to many conservatives around the country. It’s also a matter of how current Republican positioning influences Democrats’ behavior.

If California Republicans examine conservatives in other states, they will find Republicans taking the lead on prison reform.

Republican governors in Texas, Georgia and Ohio, long known for their tough-on-crime credentials, have signed bipartisan “smart-on-crime” (evidence-based) prison-reform packages that divert nonviolent offenders from prison.

The reason is that a growing number of conservatives now see prison reform coinciding with many of the values they hold dear. Done right, reform saves tax dollars, it shrinks a bloated, inefficient government program and, most important, it saves lives by improving public safety while sending fewer people to prison. The results are telling. Reform-minded states have seen their prison numbers decline, saving millions while continuing to see their crime numbers drop.

Sadly, many Republican lawmakers here are being left behind. There is a new Republican-led effort to repeal realignment in favor of, once again, more prisons.

Looking closely, realignment incorporates many of the evidence-based practices conservatives support elsewhere. No doubt local politics shapes its delivery. But rather than Republicans turning to an old habit, they should instead view the challenges with realignment as a path back to political relevancy by offering constructive policy ideas that would decrease the number of inmates behind bars.

We know from experience that mass incarceration is terrible policy. It’s also increasingly bad politics. Three quarters of our prison cells are filled with racial and ethnic minorities, a number that delegitimizes our criminal justice system in the eyes of many and worsens social inequality. Putting more people in prison will further alienate minority voters Republicans are ostensibly trying to attract.

Republican intransigence has implications for Democrats’ positioning on crime, including, most notably, Brown’s. And because of that, it’s likely to effect how far realignment eventually goes. Experience in other states indicates that if Republicans don’t join in, Democrats get skittish. That there are few signs of change among Republicans is surely part of what is behind Brown’s recent hardball tactics. His political calculations are shaped by three decades of get-tough politics in the Golden State. Without Republican backing on crime policy, how much reform can he push for without it becoming a political liability?

If Republicans stop letting political inertia guide their thinking, there is a lot to gain. Becoming an active partner in building a more rational and humane penal system matches conservatives’ first principles, and it makes the state better off.

Garrick Percival, Ph.D., is an assistant professor of political science at San Jose State University and author of the forthcoming book, “Smart-on Crime: How the Struggle to Build a more Rational and Humane U.S. Penal System is Finally Winning.” He wrote this for this newspaper.